Rep. Zeldin: Team Obama Trying to 'Overthrow' Netanyahu

President Barack Obama and his political operatives are using various means — from snubs to electioneering — to ensure that Israelis replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March with somebody more to Obama's liking, says the lone Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives.

"All the evidence seems to indicate that his team is actively working to overthrow the Israeli prime minister," freshman Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner on Newsmax TV Wednesday.

Story continues below video.

Note: Watch Newsmax TV now on DIRECTV Ch. 349 and DISH Ch. 223
Get Newsmax TV on your cable system —Click Here Now

With tensions between the two longstanding allies fanned by mutual personal dislike, Obama is doing more than just snubbing Netanyahu for not consulting him about an invitation to address Congress, said Zeldin.

"You have 16 former Obama staffers currently working as part of a contract through 270 Strategies and V-15, Victory 15, they've partnered with a U.S. taxpayer-funded not-for-profit called One Voice," said Zeldin, listing the American political and financial resources pouring into the campaign of Netanyahu's election opponent, Zionist Union leader Isaac Herzog.

"I don't think that this president would be too upset if he saw the prime minister ousted, which is greatly unfortunate," said Zeldin.

"Right now is the time to be standing with our nation's strongest ally," he said. "I don't care who the Israeli prime minister is — they should have an open invite to come address the American people. There should never be any daylight between our countries, and I'm looking forward to this historic speech."

Netanyahu is expected to talk to Congress — at the invitation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner — about the folly of trusting Iran to consent to a negotiated stop to its suspected nuclear weapons program.

"There's a whole lot wrong with the president's foreign policy," said Zeldin. "Iran is one piece of it."

Another problem, said Zeldin, is a politicized foreign policy.

"The president looks at Netanyahu as a conservative — looks at his party in Israel being like a Republican Party here in the U.S.," he said, "and this president is all politics, all the time whether it's at home or abroad."

He said Obama's misguided worldview doesn't stop with Israel.

"Whether he's talking to Cuba, he's talking to Vladimir Putin … not being at a historic unity rally in Paris, or having his plane fly to Saudi Arabia instead of being at the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, it seems like his priorities are misplaced," said Zeldin. "He needs a refresher course on who our friends are and who our enemies are."

Elected in the wave that enlarged the Republicans' House majority and gave them a Senate majority, Zeldin said that Democrats in Congress and the White House seem not to have gotten or comprehended the message sent by the American people in the midterm rout.

"Every single day we're passing really good bills here in the House of Representatives, working hard for the American people," said Zeldin, a former state senator from Long Island who knocked off a six-term Democratic House incumbent in November.

"In order for any of these bills to become law, they have to make their way through the Senate and the president has to sign it," he said.

"Eventually we all need to be willing to see if there is common ground," said Zeldin. "But when your only version of compromise is having it 100 percent your way, that's the wrong answer."

"I have a lot of respect for the executive branch," said Zeldin, but he added, "he's not a monarch."

President Barack Obama and his political operatives are using various means to ensure that Israelis replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March with somebody more to Obama's liking, says the lone Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives.